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POLLUTION IMPACTS

Plastic and plants

Nature Sustainability volume 3, pages 887–888 (2020)Cite this article

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Reports on the widespread presence of plastic particles in the environment have raised concerns about whether these particles could be taken up by plants and end up on our plates. An experimental study now reveals a mechanism through which nanoplastics can make their way into plant roots.

If you look around yourself as you read this article, you will realize that you are surrounded by plastic; perhaps you are even wearing some. Plastic particles rain down from the sky1, come out of discarded waste, and are detected in soils — they have been found wherever people have cared to look for them so far. Agricultural soils are of particular interest2, as this is where we grow our food. Since research about plastic in soils began, there has been an understandable interest in finding out if these omnipresent plastic particles can make their way into plants and, eventually, into the food we eat. This curiosity about possible plastic uptake into roots has now been satisfied. Writing in Nature Sustainability, Li et al.3 show that plant roots can take up plastic particles smaller than a micrometre (a thousandth of a millimetre).

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Fig. 1: Plastic arrives in agroecosystems via a range of different input pathways.

Dahlhaus Kniese / Alamy Stock Photo

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  1. Institut für Biologie at Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Matthias C. Rillig

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  1. Matthias C. Rillig
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Correspondence to Matthias C. Rillig.

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Rillig, M.C. Plastic and plants. Nat Sustain 3, 887–888 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0583-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0583-9

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